Canon 1D Mark III Review – Design, Controls and Timings
Canon 1D Mark III Review – Design, Controls and Timings
Design and Controls
The Canon Digital 1 series hold a long tradition of being excellent, well built cameras and the latest 1D does not disappoint. From the minute you pick it up, it’s clear that this is a camera that was designed to be taken on location with a rugged build quality, extremely tight weather sealing and a host of analogue controls which provide access to a myriad of functions without having to step into the menu system.
I’ve never been a huge fan of cameras with built in vertical grips, despite the additional battery life they provide. I tend to prefer slightly smaller cameras and carrying additional batteries if necessary although this is perhaps due to the fact that I rarely make use of the vertical grip itself, even when shooting in portrait orientation. The additional weight of the 1D is of course noticeably greater as a result, but it’s also very well balanced, if it makes sense to describe it as such. The camera feels just as at home with a small 50mm prime mounted as with a large telephoto zoom – not resulting in a slightly awkward “tipping back” effect as I’ve noticed with other cameras. The styling of the hand grip and this balance in design made it very comfortable to hold the camera over sustained periods of time.
Accessibility to controls is predictably good. Changes to almost every major setting are offered without the need to dip into the menu system and the addition of “My Menu” shortcuts make custom menu settings easier to access. In the past, I’ve always said that I’ve preferred Nikon ergonomics very slightly to Canon’s in general. After use of the 1D for a short period of time, I’d said the final vestiges of that notion are well and truly extinguished.
Despite the camera’s large size, the LCD still dominates much of the back of the body. After being disappointed with the 40D’s LCD screen (particularly when zooming into an image), I was very interested to see how the 1D’s screen would perform. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it to be significantly better than the 40D. There may be a slight improvement but they’re close enough for them to be categorized as the largely the same. Reviewing it side by side with the 5D’s LCD (which is good but is not industry leading), it clearly provides a lower quality display. Taking this conversation to another level, I’ve compared the 1D’s display side by side with the 4x higher resolution Nikon D3 LCD and there is no comparison – the Nikon wins hands down.
However, having said all this, it’s not of a particular concern to me. As I’ve said before, LCD’s are a bit of a security blanket – providing photographers with a level of comfort of the quality of their shoot before they go back to their PC’s to see what they really got. A better LCD does an improved job at providing that feedback on location but in many cases, there’s little you can do about it by the time you’re reviewing it on your LCD anyway as reshooting is very rarely an option. In the cases where you can reshoot, then it means you’re in a controlled environment (portraiture, still life, landscape, studio, etc) and I find to be 100% sure, reviewing on any LCD is never good enough anyway (with the PC being the only true gauge). For me, once LCD’s hit 2.5” and became of reasonable quality, they all became good enough. Improvements beyond that definitely make me feel better about my images and increase the enjoyment of reviewing the images on the camera but rarely have made me a better photographer.
Coming back to the internals of the camera, one of the big benefits of the 1D professional line series is the configurability that the camera provides. Unlike with the lower range series, almost every setting on the camera can be configured to your preference. For example, if you wish to shoot in a lower speed, you can set exactly what those frames per second should be. The same goes for setting the max buffer size, etc. You can also microadjust your lenses – making corrections for minor front or back focus issues, something which I found incredibly useful and discuss later in the AF section. All these adjustments do not make headline news but they’re small benefits which add up greatly when fine tuning the camera to suit your shooting needs.
Another aspect of the controls I found worth mentioning was the AF point selection system. Gone is the joystick approach of using a 8 directional pad to select any of the cameras AF points. Instead, a system of rotation is employed, using a combination of the front and rear analogue dials. It’s difficult to get used to at first and definitely one of those things that requires practice. After time though I found this to be an exceptionally quick way of changing AF point. Rolling a dial became as intuitive as jogging a joystick and I’ve been able to change AF point quickly and perhaps more efficiently than I have before on other bodies.
The final part of design brings me to the viewfinder. Very simply, it’s big, bright and very easy to compose with. I found it on par with the Full Frame 5D’s viewfinder, with little difference between the two. After using viewfinders like this, it’s very (very) hard for me to go back to cropped sensors.
Performance
An easy part of the review, as you’d expect, everything about the 1D is lightening fast. Start up time has the feeling of being instantaneous and the camera responds immediately in every way. The 10 fps is actually so fast that I often shoot in a much lower speed when photographing regular subjects (e.g. portraits).
Battery life in the field is truly excellent. Expect 2,000 – 3,000 shots per charge even with plenty of LCD reviewing.
I’m going to cut this section short now due to the fact that I would normally summarise AF performance here. However, as outlined in the introduction this is a much bigger topic on the 1D than with other cameras so this is covered in another section.
Live View
The Canon 1D MK3 was the first Canon DLSR to feature Live View and very honestly, it feels like a bit of an afterthought. Unlike the 40D (and other competitors), it does not allow for auto focusing in this mode. As such, an already niche feature has become even more limited. It wasn’t without use at all however. Uses I found for manual focus Live View were:
- Macro work
- Calibrating my lenses for front / back focusing (a setting which is possible on the 1D series).
However, while I was able to find some use for the 1D, don’t expect to be using it for regular shooting.
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